


Expialidocious

by JayBarou



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Do Not Archive (The Magnus Archives), Fingering, Light Bondage, M/M, Other, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Trans Gerry, Trans Male Character, character expecting pain with each touch, implied touch starved, petting, typical spiral nonsense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-17
Updated: 2020-06-17
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:40:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,825
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24773272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JayBarou/pseuds/JayBarou
Summary: Gerry has a weakness, Michael knows.
Relationships: Gerard Keay/Michael | The Distortion
Comments: 47
Kudos: 197





	Expialidocious

The first time had been simple enough; it had been a mistake and it had been about touch. 

Gerry was in the middle of a relatively safe break-in, dealing with an artefact of the Distortion, not even a Leitner, just a blanket. Everything was going well until the Distortion’s most annoying limb had shown up to take it. Michael had toyed around making Gerry try to get it back before making the cursed blanket disappear. 

That left Gerry in an uncomfortable position; in a room with a monster, very much underprepared, and without a prize for his troubles if he survived the encounter except for his continued sanity.

“You have what you came for, then,” Gerry said, backing away, but careful no to corner himself.

“You think you know.” Michael sighed every word at once. “But you are no beholder, you are a spinning top.”

On the one hand, Gerry was used to speaking with monsters, his mother had made sure of that. On the other, this monster in particular always made him uncomfortable. The human it used to be was too recognizable; it forced Gerry to wonder what would have happened if he had visited the archives a few months earlier, maybe their positions would be reversed, or... But what-ifs were useless. There was a monster and he had nothing but a lighter.

“Save me the speech.”

Michael laughed and he could see the pattern of the blanket creeping through the side of its face for a moment before it disappeared.

“Speeches are not something I can do. Unless you can exact one from me. But… Not a beholder.”

Gerry didn’t have much time. Michael would do something any moment now, Gerry hoped not to be there to see it if he could help it. And his opening was right there, to the left, he could see the open door he had used to come in. He had both his eyes and his hopes pinned in that direction; if he could just run past Michael... Oh. There was a blade, no, a finger under his chin. It made him look back and up, up, up into a smiling round face.

“I just want to know,” he said very slowly. “How you found this.”

The sharp fingers left his chin and the blanket was once again in its hand.

Gerry didn’t wait anymore. He ran for the door and hoped the blanket and the surprise would be enough to let him survive. He wasn’t free yet when he practically ran into a metal pole with his stomach. All air left him. He was quickly dragged back the short distance he had managed to run until he was pinned against Michael’s chest with what he now realized was Michael’s arm. It was firmly over his hip bone like the security bar of a roller coaster. That same arm had made a second loop around them, because the hand was pushing his clavicle against Michael too. Gerry tried, but he couldn’t make either bulge. 

“The blanket?”

“Oh, that little thing? It is just the first thing I found lying around.”

The chest against his back was a completely unfamiliar feeling. Something utterly wrong was there, and without sight the Distortion’s influence was much more evident. There was something plain to the touch, but he also felt colours moving like muscles and the kind of temperature shock that could be burning or freezing.

Whatever it was, it was also very obviously alive, and there was movement, like a breath. He was afraid because something small in him liked what he felt, even with the static, and the hard edges, and the strange not-hot-but-not-cold-either. He was afraid because he was not oblivious to how much he wanted any kind of touch that didn’t end up in pain this time. 

“You came for it.” The words vibrated in the air, stayed there before dissolving. 

His body only knew he was being held. The difference with “restrained” wasn’t registering at the moment, maybe because those sharp hands were barely points of contact, not pressing with their edge. Much. He had had knives stabbed deeper.

Michael used his other hand to bring the dizzy-patterned blanket in front of them.

“How?” Michael spoke and his voice was next to Gerry’s left ear, but in typical Spiral nonsense, he could hear it coming from somewhere in the right side when in truth Michaels height meant it should be a palm over his head. But most of all, he could hear the question rattle in his bones. Not the way the beholding unsettled, more like being tied to an amplifier that could just let out a whisper and it would still be impossible to ignore.

His heartbeat sped up, his breathing sped up, his wanting skyrocketed, and his fear went along. He couldn’t even hope the monster hadn’t noticed. Michael had part of its huge hand across the ribs his heart was trying to break through, and it _was_ a monster that could feel fear, so of course, it must have noticed his.

Feeling already fucked up, Gerry didn’t have any part of his mind operative to find a clever way out of the situation, so he answered.

“I found a mention of it in st. Mary’s Hospital after it was donated a year ago when the children of its last victim decided to get rid of everything. I followed the person who stole it.”

It had not been a long phrase, he was out of breath anyway.

“Peculiar.” It said, breaking the word, and breaking Gerry’s concentration, especially when its thumb moved back and forth over his neck. He had to focus to stay still and not exposing more of himself to the touch. “Gabriel must have taken up knitting.”

Gerry was not paying much attention to the words. He was, quite frankly, lost in sensation. And it was such a small one too, but he couldn’t even think, his mind was gone, and he wasn’t sure if the Distortion had anything to do with it. Probably not.

“Then he survived,” it said cheerfully, and Gerry had no idea of what it had said, he could only feel the spike of something fresh in his throat as it laughed. 

He felt himself being released; a moment of panic at being left alone, and a second to wonder if those fingers had lingered and dragged on purpose before leaving. 

“Ah... You wou ** **ldn’t**** like Gabriel.”

Gerry didn’t know what to do with himself. The Distortion seemed to be preparing to leave and his mind was coming back to rights. He was angry with himself for freezing.

Which was why he did the most stupid thing and grabbed the blanket before Michael could cross its door.

“I have to destroy that.”

Michael laughed again. Briefly. “¿No?” But he intoned it like it was the most obvious thing in the world, almost condescending.

The blanket slipped through his fingers shadow-like, and Michael did too.

But that was just the first time. Gerry was ashamed to admit the Distortion had found an unexpected weakness, but he knew it all the same. He wondered how deep that weakness ran. He didn’t have a problem fighting back and escaping restraints when there were other humans, or entities, or avatars. Those just wanted his pain, after all. 

But Michael? Who knew what Michael wanted at any given time? Chaos and fear? Being an annoyance? No, if it was Michael, he was fucked. 

That was why he had avoided any case that could have a connection to the Spiral. He had tried to get over his weakness to touch by finding partners at night too, but years were not desensitized in a couple of nights, and he had not found the kind of thrill to satisfy him. He wasn’t looking just for touch apparently.

After a while it became obvious that his plan to avoid Michael had one major flaw; Michael could still find _him_.

Any doubt about Michael realizing it had the key to a very exploitable part of Gerry was obliterated. Michael had made a point of touching him during whatever interaction they were having. Whether it was having Gerry hanging from an arm while he clutched a sword of the Slaughter, or keeping a hand on his shoulders as it guided him forcibly out of the corn maze where he knew a hunter was hidden.

And Gerry let it, but he kept expecting the exploiting part of it. He kept expecting it to ask for a favour, to demand, to instigate, to offer a door, to do something else that wasn’t just trapping his hands when Gerry had tried to shove it. Something other than making him confused. But so far their interactions had been roughly the same as before but more tactile. He was afraid of getting relaxed, but the worst that had happened so far was how he let himself be manhandled with a little less resistance than he would normally.

Sometimes Michael showed up without any reason at all, even when he was researching instead of running for his life.

Sometimes they talked. 

And since Gerry didn’t push it away, Michael had come to visit frequently. Sometimes to pester him, to mock, to confusingly help, and to touch. And it had grown bolder with time. Maybe what Michael really liked was the fear. Gerry’s fear grew taut at every touch, and bloomed into relief when it wasn’t followed by pain. He feared his mind because it kept expecting pain. He was afraid of liking being so helpless with a creature that could break him so easily. His fear also came to the surface muddled up with a feeling of inadequacy, because he was painfully aware of his limited experience. His mother hadn’t given him exactly the time, space and privacy to figure himself out, much less himself with others.

So maybe it was the fear driving Michael in. 

And still, Gerry let it get close enough to twist its fingers in his hair, despite the untameable curls afterwards. But, consistently, what it never brought was pain, it never even pulled his hair, and that felt disconcerting on its own. So, yes, he let it grab him and move him, because unlike so many times with... he never feared a sprain with Michael. He feared many other things, and when he feared something, he investigated it.

He had been at Pine Hurst, comfortable and shoe-less, taking a cup of tea from the kitchen to the living room where his last research was spread over the table. He was using the heat of the cup to warm both of his hands when his forearms were grabbed. From the wrists to the elbows, his arms were bound together by an incongruous hand. Other hand came to grab the teacup by the rim. 

“You were investigating… me,” it asked, tasting the cup before leaving it balanced on the handle of an umbrella. He walked in the direction Gerry had been going. Gerry was easily led along. He tested the hand keeping his forearms together, but he did it more to feel the fingers squeeze harder than to escape. And he wasn’t really sure of what that meant.

“I don’t think I should be telling you what I was investigating,” he said casually.

He only got a noncommittal hum as an answer.

Michael walked into the living room and sat on the sofa, forcing Gerry to follow its movements, sitting him on its lap with a leg on each side of Michael’s and his back to its chest. Gerry had a moment to think about how much he should not be letting this happen. He looked at the incomprehensible face behind him. Too close.

“What do you want?”

“Your... time,” it widened its smile more than would be possible in a human.

“That’s not...”

But he gasped into silence when its hand traced a slow path on the inside of his thigh, from his knee to his groin. It felt like biting a cotton ball, but it also felt like an answer.

“Do I have it?” Michael asked. Gerry felt curls touching his ear and fingers lifting the edge of his t-shirt.

“Hmm?” was all he could articulate.

“Do I have your time?” came the question again with no small amount of amusement behind it.

Gerry could think again because the fingers were just resting still. He wondered what would happen if he said no; if he said he was too busy right now. The possibilities were all bad. Not, surprisingly, because he feared being stabbed, but because he would miss this, whatever it was, and he would _wonder_.

“I thought time was a lie,” he turned again to say in a low voice with as much confidence as he felt.

Michael giggled, resting its head on top of Gerry’s and pressing him closer. For Gerry every point of pressure was overwhelming. Even more when Michael swept Gerry’s hair aside, leaving a perfect spot on his nape to feel every breath behind him. 

“A lie, a useful lie.”

Gerry felt those words like a puff against his hair and after that… nothing. Stillness, not even the buzzing static that seemed to follow everywhere Michael went. It took him a second to notice that the thing made of twisting lies wanted a clear answer. 

“Yes, yes, Michael. You have my time, and you have _me_ for that time.”

He surprised himself with how sure he was. His self-preservation should have done something to stop those words, but no. It seemed the decision had been taken long ago and this was just a formality.

A noise of satisfaction and Gerry felt his hands being pulled up and his t-shirt being pulled off. He didn’t keep track of how it should have gotten bunched up and stuck because if someone knew how to dissolve a Gordian knot, it would be the Distortion. But more importantly, he didn’t keep track because it had taken off his binder with the kind of ease Gerry would love every night he came tired and wanting to just drop unconscious on the bed.

Gerry, conditioned by years of doing the same thing, pushed his shoulders back and breathed deeply as soon as it was off. Michael brought his hand to Gerry’s throat, not constricting, but probably feeling him take air in.

It was disturbing for Gerry; there were a couple of fingers long enough to twist around his whole neck like an affectionate noose. At the same time, other fingers held his jawline and got lost in his hair. He could feel Michael breathing deeply at the same time as he did. The rise and fall of the chest, the air on his naked skin… He felt heat at the symmetry of them, despite it coming from something kaleidoscopic, or perhaps because of it.

After a beat of time, he was pushed to bend forward. The hand around his neck snaked behind him, and he was almost sure some fingers had moved on their own, without caring where the rest of the hand went. 

The probably five fingers were spread on his back covering it whole. Gerry let go a breath at the size. He drew it back in quickly when sharp pads explored the indentations the binder had left.

A cold sweep of surprise, too fast to be called pain, ran down his spine without hesitation. He arched as it went down. He was almost sure there would be blood. It was at odds with whatever touched him next. It had a more forgiving texture, travelling back up reverently, from scar to mole, to his ribs, not stopping for long.

Gerry realized, maybe too late, that all the eyes on his back must have been crossed out. And he was sure it was intentional. The straight line still burned a fizzling hot path. A direction that Michael, going back up, was not following at all. But every time its capricious way crossed the straight line, a kind of dull shock stabbed him. It made waves of pleasure rise around it, and made the hairs on his nape stand on end.

He clenched his hands into fists with each burst, and it prompted his sentient bonds to tighten too. Gerry wasn’t complaining, he liked knowing that those were fingers and not just ropes. Also, his fists were not the only ones tensing either. His knees were pressing the outside of Michael’s thighs and his toes curled when Michael played around the hem of his trousers, with what may have been called a knuckle. But it felt nothing like a knuckle, too many bones.

It dropped a kiss on his nape and it felt like a kiss, if colder and unexpected. It sneaked his hand under him, over his stomach and went up towards his sternum. Gerry rose and pulled his arms in protectively. Michael just twisted its path to the side, over his ribs, pulling him back further. Gerry went easily and he shivered when his whole back made contact with the chest behind him. Everything his skin had felt in the last minute seemed to happen again, all at the same time.

His mind faltered then, he wasn’t sure if the creature he was sitting on was dressed or not, had ever been dressed or not, if it encompassed him or not, but trying to remember seemed inconsequential. He felt two steps removed from Gerry, and he felt as if letting go of himself in floating pieces would be fine, because in the end everything would stay, caught in the sharp edges of Michael, or maybe tangled in its curls.

His body might be a hot wire of feeling, worked up over the smallest touch, but his mind had not been this relaxed in... maybe ever.

He was a bit more present when Michael pushed a hand between his legs, and Gerry couldn’t help himself; he canted his hips forward into the hand. He gasped at the hard pressure, and his gasp dragged unevenly when the lumpy fingers moved forward and backwards playfully, languidly and without rhythm. Gerry dropped his head back and his ear was against the top of Michael’s chest. He was keenly aware of every small noise of curiosity and pleased surprise coming from it when he squirmed in frustration. Hearing Michael made him flush, made him feel seen instead of observed.

The button of his trousers had been digging into his navel for a while. When it popped open, the relief was forgotten in favour of eagerness. He squirmed, this time to help the trousers get lost. He shivered when Michael’s hand squeezed his bare thigh.

So far he hadn’t regretted having his arms restrained, but he was starting now. 

He wanted more, and he didn’t want to have to voice it. He wanted to move that hand where he wanted it and stop the maddening roaming low on his abdomen, low on his groin, low on his outer lips… but with barely any pressure. He could have said something, but silence felt like some kind of protection. As if nothing could be really out of place if they stayed quiet. This was some kind of delirium without consequences. 

However, his huff of frustration and his arching hips didn’t instigate things further, they only managed to stop everything. It was just hovering over him patiently.

“Michael…”

Gerry noticed Michael nuzzling the side of his temple, he felt what he could guess were lips, but with the texture of warm sand. 

“So willing to lose yourself.” 

Gerry felt its quiet words marking him on the surface and spilling down over his skin like drops of water. Physically cold, but at the same time sending heat through him.

Michael must have noticed how he trembled with those words because the silence was gone. 

“Do you even know what you want?”

Yes, yes he knew, he wanted _more._

“You can’t say it,” it teased.

“Michael…” he managed to say with an edge of anger.

It laughed. Soft, still too softly, one of its fingers dipped down to draw a spiral around his clit

“Yes…”

And then it went lower, coated his fingers in slick and spread the mess around. 

“You feel so wet, and warm.”

“Michael…” Gerry didn’t know what he meant, but he whined. 

Michael was right, he hadn’t realized he was almost dripping. He opened his legs further when those slick fingers slid between his lips, not dipping in, just sliding up barely touching his clit the first time, and picking up pressure with each pass, dragging flesh against almost-flesh.

Gerry was sweating, he couldn’t and wouldn’t keep himself still. His breath was irregular, and it felt like every gasp of air he drew in came out as a stuttering mess and a few contained moans. 

“I like hearing your noises. Make more.”

Michael said it while drawing his unfairly long and inhuman finger against his clit for long seconds, so he got his wish. Gerry moaned louder. 

There was no getting used to it, because Michael’s fingers were not consistent in any shape or form and its movements changed unexpectedly. Gerry wanted something to clutch, but his hands were still restrained. Instead, almost unconsciously, he had twisted his feet around Michael’s calves and was using that to slip to a better position.

Gerry was slowly losing his mind with Michael’s inconsistency. He went from twisting to pulling, to curling without a warning, from short ups and long downs to zigzagging and circles. From hard enough to feel it deep, to feather soft. 

“Where is your mind now?”

And despite the inconsistency, Michael seemed to jump from good to better. Sliding in counterpoint until he could feel the heat rise al the way to his ears, pressure left and right getting his breath back, losing it back again when its thumb pulled around his clit, never touching it directly...

“Lost.”

Gerry never felt the rising, just the fall. 

He cried breathlessly and clenched around nothing, Michael gripped him tight. He was gone. He was seeing white. He could only feel and nothing felt right around him, but _he_ felt right for a heartbeat, two, three, more, he couldn’t count. He had better things to feel than numbers. He could feel a shiver of pleasure cascading in him, not in himself, just in him. Everything was far. Everything that was there was gone and there. This was not right... he felt a tendril of fear.

“Found you.”

He heard the words but didn’t linger in them, because he was back exactly where he had been, and Michael hadn’t so much stopped as slowed down. 

He felt the aftershocks and the fear. Both were dissolving into the lazy current of pleasure that Michael was keeping alive. He knew Spiral bullshit when he experienced it, and he had been far, far too close for a moment. 

He thought he heard something like “delicious” being said against his neck before it was lightly bitten, but he wasn’t sure with the rasps of his breaths.

He could feel Michael’s excitement, he could sense he was content, but he was not excited in any physical form that he could perceive. He wasn’t sitting in any obvious sign and it had not been seeking friction. Maybe...

Gerry felt one of the binds uncoiling itself from his arms to caress his cheek.

“You are… thinking.”

Gerry wondered if that was bothering Michael. And then he was sure because one of the fingers still petting him made itself obvious between his folds as oversensitivity gave way to want again. He knew he should at the very least think about what had happened and what to do, but he didn’t.

“Then make me stop.”

Michael laughed against his neck, and that sound was just as thrilling as the finger going into him with small unhurried pushes. Gerry turned to the side and found that Michael was not looking at where it was buried in him. Michael was looking at him, with a smug smile, with hunger. 

Gerry couldn’t read that look, he didn’t have the patience or the time for it. So he pulled himself as far as he could reach and kissed it. 

Michael had not been expecting that. Gerry could feel easily the surprise. But it wasn’t unwelcome either since he could see its edges losing coherence, and that was probably good. Gerry made the fruitless effort of trying to know what he was kissing, but he could only accept it was happening. 

In retaliation, Michael resumed his stroking, both inside and outside. Gerry gasped and Michael used that to invade him further. It could be called a tongue, but it refused such labels. Gerry was quite happy anyway exploring its texture with the part of his mind that wasn’t lost in fingers.

Michael huffed a laugh, breaking the kiss, pressing their foreheads together and smiling with a dangerous edge. That effectively reminded Gerry how Michael was at its core a monster. Gerry felt a second finger playing around the first one.

“How far do you think I could go?”

Gerry didn’t whine, but it was close and his approval, braided with apprehension, was plain to see anyway. He ground his hips on now two twisting fingers that followed no discernible rhythm. Michael slipped deeper and sighed, but despite its words, it didn’t seem to be interested in depth. 

It was interested instead in the way Gerry lost his mind when it pulled up firmly enough to move his hips. It was delighted to feel him react to the digits playing at width, stretching, and moving the stretch up, down, in circles, maybe spirals. Gerry felt he was being toyed with instead of being taken with some purpose, no hurry. And even out of wits as he was, he couldn’t say he wanted to hurry either; he liked every new twisting, both impossible for a human hand and not. 

It was probably inherent to the Distortion, but Michael was _creative._

Gerry had gone back to kissing it, if only to do something with himself. He had found that, even restrained, he could turn enough to use his hands and he was cradling Michael’s face with the margin it left him. He wasn’t rushing the kiss either, but with each especially enjoyable twist, he made sure to pour his appreciation into the kiss. 

He wasn’t sure how long they spent like that, just for the sake of feeling, but Gerry reached a second orgasm when another finger teased with pushing in. 

He drifted back into blinding white and just sensation, where temperature had no meaning, gravity was a suggestion, everything was there, at arm’s reach. His identity faded to make room for thrill and excitement... for a long time. 

He had started to fear he had made a mistake when he was yanked back to reality. Panting. Still cradled in long arms. Empty. Tired. The insanity was leaving him inside and settling around them once again, leaving alone his sense of magnitudes and transferring the dizzy feeling to his whole living room instead.

He put his right leg over Michael's with a wince. He had no sense of how long he had spent in that position, but he was stiff. His arms were stiff too. He didn’t have to worry about those when the hand tying them was opening and rubbing sense into them so carefully.

Gerry let himself relax and slip back and to the side, sitting more on the sofa than on Michael, but still with his legs crossed over the others. He was leaning into Michael’s chest without a care in the world with its arm over his shoulders. Wits were not fired up yet, but he had grey cells enough to ask. 

“What about you?”

Michael was distracted. He was tracing Gerry’s veins.

“What about me?”

“Don’t you want me to return the favour?” Gerry looked wonderingly at Michael’s body. “Somehow?”

“I think… I wouldn’t like that. I already have my favour, spinning top.”

He laughed. “Top. Seriously.”

“No.” His voice was song-like. “Never seriously. But you are. In balance, in action. All colours blended can be black…” It coiled a strand of his dark hair and let it slip. “Or white. Like you. But what would happen if you were to stop?”

That was entirely too consistent a thought for the Distortion, which probably meant that Gerry’s mind was a few grades away from normal to understand it. Maybe it was a threat. He didn’t care. 

Gerry wondered if he should ask why, but it was not his greatest idea. He could only expect lies, after all. He was tired. If there was a way to trick Michael into telling him why it kept coming back, he wasn’t going to find it while almost nodding off on the sofa, so he chose to let the quiet moment go on.

**Author's Note:**

> I didn't feel like ending on an angsty note from an unreliable narrator, but here you have it if you want it:  
> ***  
> Michael kept visiting, but...  
> But with every new visit, Gerry worried, because if Michael was there because of the fear, he was slowly running out of it. For the last month, his only fear laid exclusively in getting lost in Michael’s extension of his disconnection. He knew those had been getting longer each time, always long enough to make him fear this was the time, this was the time Michael wasn’t going to give his mind back. Or, only admitted to himself deep in his mind, worse; the day it wouldn’t come back.  
> ***  
> I will let each one have their headcanon, but in mine, Michael is ace, was ace when human, and likes making Gerry squirm more than it likes getting the attention on itself. It likes Gerry in general. Gerry is overthinking but will figure out eventually that he can be liked without retaliation.
> 
> I have been agonizing over this oneshot and wondering if I should orphan it before going for it, so I would be very, very thankful if you hit me up with a comment, critic, praise or damnation. Any reaction will do, if it is constructive I might be encouraged to write an encore.  
> If you feel there is a tag missing, tell me!


End file.
